Comments (22)

What did you think about this title?
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Dec 04, 2023Candaceb108 rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Wonderful book. We humans are so limited. Animals of different species help each other, not us.
Apr 29, 2023NylaMBelshe rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
This novel portrays the Japanese American experience in the 1940s when thousands of Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps. The story follows a family whos father has been/5 taken by the government and they do not know when he…
Sep 27, 2022aditi_reads rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
This poignant, beautifully written novel has taught me so much about racism in America towards Asian Americans. It follows a Japanese American family living in Berkeley that is sent to an internment camp in Utah during World War II. The…
Oct 22, 2021izabellekokkat rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor during World War II, Americans were fearful of Japanese Americans, believing them to be spies for Japan. This paranoia eventually influenced the government into moving all Japanese people into internment…
Feb 10, 2021RamspeckSloan rated this title 2 out of 5 stars
Fortunately this book was short. Otherwise it was pretty disappointing. It was not creative enough for a novel and not informative enough for nonfiction, and it certainly did not do justice to its title.
Sep 11, 2016ChesterChester rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
I have read this book twice, and admired it's honest approach to the plight of so many. Written from the intimate perspective of one family's experience, it covers much ground and shares the pain and difficulty experienced by so many…
Sep 10, 2015DorisWaggoner rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Because of the lack of names, I wasn't always clear on whose point of view I was getting. But that didn't matter, as the family were both universal and fragmented by their wartime experiences. Their story is both a quick read and very…
Jun 19, 2015FW_librarian rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Each short chapter is the viewpoint of a family member as they are forced from their comfortable home in California (with only a suitcase), packed into decrepit train cars with no ventilation, no food or water, and sent to a desert in Utah…
May 18, 2015PimaLib_StephanieM rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
I agree with reviewers who found that the treatment of the topic of internment was not terribly deep. This did not bother me, though, as I found the strength of the book to be in the portrait it created of the emotional life of people who…
Feb 23, 2015VV3 rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Told in the third person, Otsuka manages to create a powerful story about a Japanese-American family who are sent to an internment camp during WW2. While almost impersonal, the story is still lyrical and moving.
Sep 24, 2014miaone rated this title 2 out of 5 stars
I'd recommend Farewell to Manzanar for a deeper story of the lives of American Japanese on the home front in WWII and after. This book is cleverly written to appeal to people who know little about the subject. I found it boringly…
Aug 28, 2014IV27HUjg rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Another view of detainment, how it came about for this family, the journey, living conditions & surprisingly to me, the return to their home when so many had no home to return to. Many parts are hard to accept, the deprivation,…
booklady413
Jul 24, 2014
This was a beautifully crafted piece of literature. On each page you felt the emotions of the characters coming through on the page,and not naming the charters made the story even more universal. Unfortunately, this was a very sad era in…
Mar 04, 2014uncommonreader rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
A slim volume about the Japanese internment during WW II. Well done but not exceptional.
Feb 21, 2014coastalkate rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Best book I read in 2013. Better than her Buddha's in the Attic. Her style in this one perfectly tells the story - well crafted and well written.
LMcShaneCLE
Jan 29, 2014LMcShaneCLE rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
I woud recommend this as high school reading - especially to give sense of xenophobia at the time. Otsuka's writing style is very much like Raymond Carver's - spare.
Krull14
Aug 02, 2013Krull14 rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
Really compelling book about hardship. I wish it had gone in to a little more detail, as it seemed to skip some details.
mrsgail5756
Feb 27, 2013mrsgail5756 rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
A very good read. I enjoyed this book. I would recommend this book for all to read.
Dec 18, 2011pokano rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
Powerful story of a Japanese/Japanese American family torn apart during World War II. Julie Otsuka's story is all the more poignant and desolate because none of the family has names.
Sep 30, 2011floy rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
This is a short easy-to-read novel that packs a powerful punch. The chapters start out with simple words and short sentences but evolves into more complexity. I know many internees preferred not to talk about their internment during WWII…
Mar 03, 2011jgi rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Excellent! A unique look at a somewhat different perspective than the usual novels about this time and circumstance in history. I read through very quickly!
Mar 12, 2010
This book was the 2006 selection for Silicon Valley Reads